A few hours after Dwight Howard selected the Rockets over Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks and other suitors, Morey sent Cuban a text message asking about his willingness to trade Dirk Nowitzki.

There obviously was no way the Mavs would deal Nowitzki, who has a no-trade clause in his contract and has vowed to finish his career in Dallas. This seemed to be a case of Morey rubbing the Rockets’ win in the recruiting battle for Howard in Cuban’s face.

Cuban told the story after Houston lost to Dallas last week, and then twisted the knife.

“They were bad for so long, it wasn’t really there, other than that one playoff year,” Cuban said of a rivalry with the Rockets. “But now they’ve got good people. I think there’s more of a rivalry building.

“It’s still early in the season for that. But now that we’ve played them two times, we can help them sell tickets next time. I think they need a little help.”

If the fact that two extremely accomplished intelligent men still trade barbs like 14-year-olds doesn’t restore your faith in humanity, then. . . okay.

The Katana – Scott Rafferty at Hardwood Paroxysm looks into the reasons why Terrence Jones has been effective, which include his ability to cut to the basket. On a related subject, Terrence Jones needs a nickname. Somebody call Bill Worrell and tell him to start referring to Jones as “The Katana,” because he is just so good at cutting.

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Red94 is a blog about the NBA's Houston Rockets. It was created in 2009 by Rahat Huq and inducted into ESPN.com's TrueHoop Network that same year. Follow @redninetyfour on Twitter for all new post updates.